FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT ROOMMATE - PAGE 5

Dear Miss Manners: My roommate wants to have his girlfriend stay the night about five nights a week, and I've objected. He and I have been friends for 10 years, and this is putting a real strain on our friendship. She comes over in the evening, stays the night and leaves rather early. She has not been a nuisance other than that I don't enjoy having to share my evenings with someone. I have said I could tolerate her being over three nights per week or, if he wanted her to stay more often, that they contribute $50 to the rent (about 10 percent of the rent)

An Elgin man was ordered held Friday in lieu of $500,000 bail after police said he admitted to striking his roommate in the head multiple times with a hammer last week. Cesar Jimenez Velasco, 26, of the 500 block of Walnut Avenue was taken into custody Thursday and charged with aggravated battery with great bodily harm and aggravated domestic battery in the beating of Domingo Barrera Casarrubias, 50, with a hammer while he was in bed the morning of March 11, said Lt. Mike Turner.

Looking for a roommate can be exasperating, exhausting and expensive. So where do you begin your search? Some people start looking through the classified ads or a roommate referral service. Others ask friends or use bulletin boards in Laundromats. If you are thinking of going the coin clothes-washing route, you will need to sift through a colorful assortment of flyers advertising things like child care, voice lessons, diet magic and "Betty: a 1972 true blue VW Superbeetle that purrs like a kitten."

A Glendale Heights man found guilty of domestic battery Tuesday also was convicted of killing his pet cockatiel during a physical altercation with his roommate last year. At the end of a one-day bench trial, DuPage County Judge Robert Kleeman found David Hritz guilty of two counts of domestic battery and a count of aggravated cruelty to animals, according to Paul Darrah, a spokesman for DuPage County State's Attorney Robert Berlin. Hritz, 39, was arrested Aug. 25 after police were called to his residence in the 1200 block of Glen Ellyn Road about 10 p.m. Authorities said Hritz struck his roommate on her head and body, and that at one point during the incident, he killed his pet bird by hurling it against a wall and then stabbing it to death with a knife.

A Schaumburg woman charged with fatally stabbing her female roommate last month during an argument pleaded not guilty Wednesday in Cook County Circuit Court. Andrea Walton, 22, the mother of two young children, entered her plea before Associate Judge Richard A. Kavitt as relatives of the victim, Antonnatte Agnew, 21, looked on from the rear of the courtroom in Rolling Meadows. Walton, who is being held in Cook County Jail in lieu of a $300,000 bond, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the June 13 stabbing death of Agnew at the Tree House Apartments, 1300 Pine Valley Drive.

By David Heinzmann and Brett McNeil, Tribune staff reporters | February 14, 2006

While investigators still were looking for half of the escapees from Cook County Jail, a Cicero woman came home Sunday night with three men her roommate had never seen before. "The girl shows up with these three guys and says [to the roommate], `These are my friends from Cleveland,'" a law enforcement source close to the investigation said Monday. It wasn't until the men fell asleep that the woman told her roommate the truth: "Actually they're the guys who escaped from the jail.

Dear Abby: I am 18 years old and a freshman in college. I have been dating my girlfriend "Holly" for about eight months. My roommate is also friends with Holly, and that is the problem. He treats Holly like she is a princess and gives her extravagant gifts. This irritates me because it makes me look like a terrible boyfriend. I cannot approach him about it because I have to live with him for the rest of the year. Holly realizes that it irritates me, but I can't have her say anything because then it would be extremely weird whenever she comes to visit -- even more than it is now. How should I handle this?

Mention the words "weird roommate" and lots of people will respond with a knowing chuckle. It seems that almost everyone has shared a dorm room, house or apartment with an odd individual and has a few incredible tales about the experience. If you're lucky, you can look back and laugh at an eccentric former roomie who collected Mrs. Butterworth bottles, an air-guitar king with horrendous taste in music or the moocher who claimed to be penniless whenever the supply of toilet paper ran out. But woe to anyone who's ever split the rent with the likes of Hedra Carlson, the roommate from hell in "Single White Female" (debuting Wednesday on Columbia TriStar Home Video, rated R, priced for rental, closed-captioned)

Dear Abby: I am a freshman in college and live in a dorm with one roommate, "Mary." Mary has had a boyfriend for two years. I'll call him "John." John goes to school a couple of hours away and visits Mary on weekends once or twice a month. This usually isn't a problem for me, as I can plan ahead to go home for the weekend, or go out with friends so Mary and John can have the room for a few hours. Yesterday, on short notice, Mary told me that John was spending the night. I tried to make plans to be "elsewhere," but nothing worked out. I told Mary I'd camp out in our dorm lounge, but she said not to worry because John was dead-tired and wanted to go to sleep right away.

A former roommate of John Kordic says the hockey player was addicted to cocaine for many years before his death earlier this month. According to Bruce Cashman, Kordic had been a cocaine user since his early days in the NHL with the Montreal Canadiens. He said Kordic had told him and others that coaches in Montreal knew some players were using cocaine. Cashman made the disclosure in an interview with Sports Illustrated for an article entitled, "Death of a Goon," scheduled for publication on Aug. 24. Cashman, who operates a gym in Quebec City where many of the Nordiques work out, said of Kordic: "He was a drug addict.